How A New York Socialite Helped The FBI Bring Down A Black-Market Baby Ring

TheNew York Post today has a wild story about how Taylor Stein, a former Manhattan society girl who has a child with cosmetics billionaire William Lauder, helped investigators bring down a major baby-peddling ring.

Stein got involved in the sordid scheme when she tried to adopt a child in 2009. She started wiring payments to the agency that promised to arrange a surrogate, eventually sending $180,000.

In return she got photos of kids who turned out to be fictitious -- and that's when things started to fall apart.

From NYP:

By the time the feds caught up with the ring, it had brokered illicit baby deals with at least 12 unsuspecting families.

"I know some of them are from New York," Stein said.

The ring worked by first luring US surrogates with the promise of payments of between $38,000 and $45,000.

One recruit was a grocery-store cashier from Missouri with five kids, said the LA Times. Another was a mortgage underwriter from Texas.

The recruits were then sent to Ukraine, where they were implanted with fertilized eggs. "Buyers" were lined up after 12 weeks, once the fetuses were statistically safe, according to NYP.

Fortunately, the story has a happy ending. Stein winds up with a baby, and the FBI nabs the trio of ringleaders who were orchestrating the sleazy scam.